Untethered

35 | Questions

Emma and Rosie had come here frequently, as it was a little off the beaten path for most of the Twin Cities, and it held a lot of memories for her. Rosie had had several of her photographs displayed in the small, contemporary art museum. When her grandma was healthy, Emma would come with her every Saturday to the huge farmer's market that was held in the old Lutheran church parking lot. Especially when they were younger, Ryan, Emma, Evan, and Rosie would take the bus and spend all day munching from food carts and watching movies or listening to live music that was hosted from the band shell in the park. She'd also been to several of the amazing little restaurants and microbreweries that had popped up in recent years.

She passed a small Greek café, a Lebanese deli, and a Persian market that always seemed to have fantastic produce, even in the middle of their bitter Minnesota winters, before finally coming to her turn. The street was three blocks long and came to a dead end, with Manuel Torres' house at the end of the little cul-de-sac. His home was modest compared to some of the vividly restored Victorians in the area, but it was pretty with its buttery-yellow siding, sage green shutters, and dark green shingled roof.

What truly made it stand out was the garden. There was hardly a blade of green grass visible, as artfully designed flower beds covered the entire front lawn. A riot of color in the form of hollyhocks, hostas, hydrangeas, marigolds, cosmos, vines of ivy, morning glories, and a host of other foliage, flourished to improbable proportions. She parked her car on the street in front of the house, letting the car idle for several minutes. Sudden uncertainty glued her hands to the steering wheel, and she bit the inside of her cheek.

On the phone, Manuel had sounded excited to hear from her. It was strange. He recognized her father's name right away, and seemed eager to speak to her. Her stomach fluttered with anxious anticipation. She wanted answers. She wanted them so badly, and she wasn't even sure what was driving this abrupt desire to seek them out. She suspected losing Grandma, and now Greta, was fostering that age-old question: who am I, and where do I come from?

And of course there was Ryan. He was undeniably part of the reason for the sudden urgency of her quest.

Most of her life, she'd worn suspicion like a shield, judgmental of everyone and their intentions reflexively. Whereas most people viewed others with a blank slate until they screwed up, she expected it. She anticipated being left, let down, lied to, and used. It was an effective way to stay safe and protected, but poisonous to any type of real relationship she might have.

Trust.

Such an innocuous, five-letter word, but loaded with dangerous meaning-for her and her heart. Laying herself bare and open, raw before someone else's gaze, at their mercy, made her sick, terrified. A kitten, exposing its soft underbelly to a hundred pound pit-bull with dripping fangs, and hoping it wouldn't get eaten.

This thing with her dad, this little mystery she'd uncovered, could lead her to a lot more than just answers about what happened to him. She'd always assumed the worst of him. But maybe things weren't as black and white as she'd always viewed them. She didn't really know anything about her dad, and she had been too stubborn to let anyone who knew better, inform her. If she could learn to see him differently, find forgiveness for him leaving her—however illogical that was—maybe it would fix that broken piece of her that held everyone at a safe distance.

Closing her eyes, she carefully pried her fingers from around the steering wheel, and shoved the car door open.

~*~*~

When she reached the front door, she rang the bell once, and heard the musical tones of Moonlight Sonata chime dimly on the other side of the door. After a minute, shuffling feet approached, and the heavy, mahogany door opened on a huge black man, in a well-worn, dark purple Vikings t-shirt and a pair of medium wash jeans that looked like they'd been ironed, with a pair of Birkenstocks on his feet.